Potable reuse offers a massive opportunity to recover water from the wastewater process, but projects face a variety of barriers to getting off the ground. Most successful early adopters engaged early with their constituents and implemented smaller-scale demonstration projects that were accessible to the public to prove the technology and process.

Large-scale water-reuse treatment plants have had sustainable impact in populated areas where the volume of water to be treated and reused in a concentrated area makes them practical. Today, the flat-sheet membrane aerated biofilm reactor (MABR) technology that is delivering high-quality wastewater treatment to remote locations is poised to realize the promise of sustainable water reuse in those same locations.

In a nod to just how important water quality has become for Lake Erie — a source body that has been plagued by toxic algal blooms for years — locals have decided to grant it the type of legal rights usually reserved for human beings.

Secondary metabolites of algae — including algal toxins and taste and odor compounds triggered by a harmful algal bloom — can find their way into source water, creating the risk that they will ultimately reach the water treatment plant to cause water-quality problems. Here is a checklist of considerations for mitigating those effects through cost-effective oxidation, or combined oxidization processes, across a variety of source water conditions.

Headlines in 2018 were dominated by the red tide along Florida’s Gulf Coast, which persisted for months, causing human respiratory illnesses, the deaths of dozens of Florida’s beloved dolphins and manatees, and hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tourism revenue and cleanup costs. Here are insights on how to forestall becoming the next city to make national headlines related to harmful algal blooms.

Changing climate and other environmental conditions are intensifying the frequency and severity of harmful algal blooms (HABs). Here are important guidelines to understanding HAB causes and impacts to potable water treatment plants — including dealing with the algal biomass, remnants of decaying algal cells, and especially the secondary metabolites that the algae produce, such as taste and odor compounds and toxins.

Over the last several years the wastewater reuse segment of the water industry has experienced both rapid growth and tremendous change. Global demand for increased water supplies fuels the development of alternative water sources, including reclaimed wastewater.